Brilliance

You'd think that, with the two houses being rivals and such, Slytherin's Head of House wouldn't know the password for Gryffindor Tower. I did and I was wrong.

About twenty minutes after Mission: Belated Christmas Present had successfully been accomplished, Elmar - The Git - Benzen loomed threateningly over a group of second years, who had until then been peacefully playing Exploding Snap - or as peacefully as you can play a game with detonating cards, anyway.

These four boys now were staring wide-eyed at the raving lunatic before them since they *honestly* did not know just what he was ranting about. For, as one boy - let's call him James - pointed out, they had not left the common room in over two hours. How could they know what had happened to the

Professor's office?

And anyhow, a second boy - let's call him Sirius - put in, they did not even know where his Professorship's office was!

But the madman did not listen. He was beside himself.

This time, he spluttered frothing at the mouth, this time the boys wouldn't get away. That had been illegal, that curse had been, he continued even as the Head of Gryffindor dragged him away to calm him down. As the portrait hole shut the boys raised their eyebrows simultaneously. Illegal?

We decided to leave the git alone for a while then, better safe than sorry.

An investigation, which followed, led nowhere. Half of Gryffindor tower attested to the fact that they had clearly heard us. As did the Fat Lady, who admitted, though, to having left shortly after Lily Evans since that racket had given her a migraine. Her friend Violett had checked back ten minutes later, however, and had fled immediately again, courtesy of some fireworks which had been set off.

We secretly congratulated ourselves. A watertight alibi.

"Fortune favours the Gryffindors, eh?" I grinned and popped a Bertie Bott into my mouth.

"All thanks to my pair of lucky socks!"

"Your lucky what, Peter?" James' head shot up from behind a magazine (MediMag).

"Socks," he repeated slowly as if we were stupid. "You know the things you wear on your feet?"

"Oh, you mean shoes!" Remus smirked.

"No, I mean socks. I've been wearing them for each and every mission!" Pipsqueak proclaimed proudly.

James sniffed.

I tried to remember how many pranks we had played and how many of them on consecutive days. My lupine friend was apparently thinking along the same lines.

"Ah," he commented dryly, "so that's where that smell comes from. I had wondered."

"I *have* washed them!" Pipsqueak spluttered, turning beet-red.

"Before every mission?" James raised both eyebrows.

"Of course!"

I shrugged and made a dismissive gesture. "If you say so." And turned back to my Every Flavour Beans.

"But I did!"

"Mhmm." Remus grabbed his quill again and continued to scribble away on his Charms essay.

James was once again deeply immersed in his mag.

"I di-id." He was whinging now. Still...

... no further reactions.

"Fine."

He grumbled something unintelligible, probably in French, and burrowed himself in Sherlock Holmes for the 23^rd time since I had given it to him. He'd known it by heart since November. I wasn't sure why he bothered reading it again. Or if he even read it at all, 'cause sometimes he just sat, staring at the pages and his eyes weren't moving in the slightest.

I soon got bored again. James and Peter were reading and Remus was doing his homework, and while eating was indeed one of my hobbies, it was a bit lackluster.

But what could I do? We had decided to curb down on pranking for a bit, the others were amusing themselves and I was really in no mood to start on my History of Magic essay. I got up from bed and left the dorm and even the tower. I had no idea where I was going and just let my feet carry me towards some unknown destination. Incidentally, I crossed the path of our dear caretaker, who was carrying buckets through the Entrance Hall, and took a peek.

The sight that greeted me left no doubts as to Benzen's temper and intelligence. The buckets were filled with the corpses of - can you guess? - yes, Esmeralda lookalikes. This had two meanings: (1) that Benzen had a terrible temper (though I already knew that) and (2) that he obviously had never heard of the Multimitation Charm (or didn't know that it would only last another 20 hours or so). I absolutely had to share this with the guys. But first I'd find out where Filch deposited the dead toads.

I followed him stealthily - or as stealthily as possible. It was no problem as long as we remained inside the castle, i. e. during the *incredibly long* journey through the *Entrance* Hall. But then he went outside. It was February. The air was cold and I had no cloak with me. I remained inside the building and watched him from the door for as long as possible. When he shuffled around the corner I resigned myself to freezing my nose off and left the warmth.

Considering how long I was on the grounds, it was a miracle that I didn't get pneumonia. And considering how little I uncovered, the risk was certainly not worth it. Most of the time I spent hiding behind a bush, my trousers getting soaked from the slush and my hair becoming damp from the snow that had decided it wanted to fall when I was freezing already.

Finally, though, Filch left and I was able to investigate the bodies. I immediately changed my opinion on Benzen. The man wasn't simply hot-tempered. He was a choleric maniac! I couldn't even begin to describe what he had done to the animals. There was not one intact body. Something else occurred to me then. There was no way Esmeralda could have escaped his wrath.

I trudged back toward the dorm and sat down heavily on my bed. Yes, I had wanted to exact revenge on Benzen but I'd never have thought, I mean, he didn't like animals of any kind, I knew, but - this had just been plain cruel.

I can't remember how long I sprawled there staring into space. At one point, James looked up and asked what was wrong. I recounted what I had uncovered and what conclusions I had drawn. The silence that ensued lay heavily in the air. Eventually Remus rose.

"You know what this means, don't you?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He hasn't paid nearly enough, yet."

Peter and James nodded and I sneezed my consent. They stared at me. Potter Junior came over and felt my forehead and stated that while I did not have a fever yet, I should go to Pomfrey, anyway. Just to be sure. I groaned.

"And if she keeps me there?"

"Better you alone than all of us," came the utilitarian (and cold-hearted) reply.

Against my earlier worries, though, the nurse didn't request that I stay in the infirmary. Still she did force me to drink that awful Pepperup Potion. James rather liked it (well, of course, *he* would) and Peter thought it was kind of funny - all that smoke and stuff-, but I just couldn't get used to it. Remus sympathised with me but that probably was because he had a general aversion towards medicine. He said it was because he had had to take so much of it already that he couldn't stand the sight of it anymore. Kinda understandable, I guess, if you took into account that his parents had tried almost everything to help him. Nothing ever had worked. This would change, however. We would make sure of it; but before that we had to take care of something else.